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Wiggio, a Twitter-style microblogging service for college students, came out of beta last week.
Microblogging is an increasingly popular form of real-time communication that went mainstream with Twitter. It is the process of publishing short, conversational messages to a large number of readers, which can instantly respond or disseminate the message to others.
Like Yammer, a subscription-based service that lets enterprises use microblogging for internal communications, Wiggio enables students to form private, chat room-style groups where they can message each other on the fly.
Existing partnerships with Zoho and Scribd avail additional features to Wiggio users: a shared calendar, group text and voice messaging, free conference calling and web meetings, filesharing, collaborative viewing/editing for documents, polling capabilities, and a list-serv.
Users can form groups based on topics of their preference: sports teams, religions, charities or otherwise.
Wiggio operated in closed beta since its January 2008 launch, building a user base of 45,000 within that period, of which 80% are college students and faculty members.
The service is the fruit of Rob and Derek Doyle — sons of MacPublisher creator Bob Doyle — and Cornell University senior Dana Lampert. Bob Doyle serves as advisor and investor on the project, which raised $450,000 in an angel round over the summer.
According to Lampert, opportunities for monetizing the service are broad. The founders are contemplating display ads, targeted by group type and university; as well as premium subscriptions and SMS ads. (Group members can opt to receive SMS-based reminders for shared calendar events.)
Twitter, which served as the muse for both Wiggio and Yammer, has yet to peg a viable means to monetize its service.
